Anti-jackknife module

  We have designed a system to quickly restore alignment of a sideward-skidding semi-truck tractor with its trajactory.  The controling-components are contained in a module mounted on the steering column.  The system activates brake-releasing valves in the front-brake lines if the tractor is skidding sideward and is steered in the direction of skid.  This action allows the front wheels to roll freely if and when they are aimed in the alignment-restoring direction -- this being the drivers instinctive response to sideward skidding.  The brakes respond to the brake peddle normally when sideward skidding stops or steering ceases to be in the direction of skid.

The control module is equipped with a steering-direction sensor, a lateral-acceleration sensor and a relay.  The sensors pass current from the brake-light circuit to the relay trigger when inertia and steering are both rightward or when inertia and steering are both leftward.  The relay when so triggered passes current from the key-on circuit to both effector valves (left front and right front).  The activated valves block their respective brake hoses and deflate respective front-brake chambers.

We welcome inquiries from possible manufacturers at:

Ingrid Regen: ingrid@dimp.com

Sam Regen:  bogus_id@comcast.net

Brian Hoffman: brian.hoffman.123@gmail.com

Interested parties may download our 3-d printer files shown below.  

In addition to the printable plastic parts, a module contains four 10-mm cylindrical neodymium magnets oriented in the same direction, one 10-mm spherical neodymium magnet, two 4-mm diameter mercury tilt sensors, two 60-mm-long spirit levels, one 1-inch square (cubic) relay HDR185, four 3-inch long 3/32-inch diameter copper-rods curved to a 60-mm diameter arc, four 2.5-inch 1/4-inch bolts, one 1-inch 1/4-inch bolt, nine 1/4-inch friction nuts, two hose clamps, a few dabs of glue.

 

The four 3-D-Printer Files

Click on .stl file name to download

 

Dazzling_Duup_35.stl

Dazzling_Duup_34.stl

Stunning_Esboo-Snaget_18.stl

Stunning_Esboo-Snaget_19.stl

              

Steering-direction Sensor

Lateral-acceleration Sensor

                                    

For love of dog

We have designed a device that greatly eases dog-toenail clipping.  Specifically, it is a thimble 100 that fits over the shear 22 and adjacent parts of a Resco clipper 20.  The thimble is secured by a tiny dab of gum 24 under the rear edge.

The thimble helps guide a toenail into the shear and limits the length of toenail sheared, thereby avoiding tedium, stress, pain and bleeding.  Mass producing the thimble seemed impractical, so we are providing it as a 3-D-print file and asking that users add $2.00 to our PayPal account for each successful printing.  FYI: it took us about two years to optimize outer and inner dimensions of the clipper guide.

To download the 3-D-printer file, 

click this link.

If satisfied, pay $2.00 to PayPal account of xmsdavidr@gmail.com.

The printer file includes eight versions of the thimble.  A set of four that fit the clipper in one orientation and a set of four more that fit the clipper in the opposite orientation.  Each set provides a choice of four clip lenths: 3 mm, 4 mm, 5 mm and 6 mm.

Newer Resco clippers with painted handles have screws (red) that stand too tall and interfer with placement of the clipper guide.  To remedy that, simply deposite viscous Superglue at the clipper's side seams (green) and, after drying, remove the screws. 

We now present the clipper guide in a website:

https://dogclipperguide.neocities.org/

Instructions:

The 3-D printer produces eight versions of the clipper guide.  You will probably use only one favorite or two.  There are two opposite orientations (right-side up and upside down), each with four cutting lengths (3, 4, 5, and 6 mm) – identified by 3, 4, 5 and 6 pips on the flat area.  I prefer the 4 pips, and I can’t decide on a preferred orientation.

Links to songbook files

To open a file:

1) Drag highlight any link  (https://mail  . . .  &zw)    

2) Right click the highlighted link,   

3) Left click the  Go To Https:// . . .   

Gospel Supplement: Lyrics & Chords for Pickers -- cover pages

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=bd1bb5ce56&attid=0.1&permmsgid=msg-a:r-1113988960564737917&th=192f8e4bbfdd2e8f&view=att&disp=inline&realattid=192f8e41c41f2ce22ec1&zw

Gosspel Supplement: Lyrics & Chords for Pickers -- inside pages

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=bd1bb5ce56&attid=0.4&permmsgid=msg-a:r-1113988960564737917&th=192f8e4bbfdd2e8f&view=att&disp=inline&realattid=192f8e41c41b287f0794&zw

Gospel Supplement: SATB Scores for singers and keyboard -- cover pages

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=bd1bb5ce56&attid=0.5&permmsgid=msg-a:r-1113988960564737917&th=192f8e4bbfdd2e8f&view=att&disp=inline&realattid=192f8e41c41c1c3816d5&zw

Gospel Supplement: SATB Scores for Singers & Keyboard -- inside pages

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=bd1bb5ce56&attid=0.6&permmsgid=msg-a:r-1113988960564737917&th=192f8e4bbfdd2e8f&view=att&disp=inline&realattid=192f8e41c41ec7581be6&zw

Country Pathos/Country Soul -- cover pages

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=bd1bb5ce56&attid=0.3&permmsgid=msg-a:r-1113988960564737917&th=192f8e4bbfdd2e8f&view=att&disp=inline&realattid=192f8e41c41658c5f573&zw

Country Pathos/Country Soul -- inside pages

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=bd1bb5ce56&attid=0.2&permmsgid=msg-a:r-1113988960564737917&th=192f8e4bbfdd2e8f&view=att&disp=inline&realattid=192f8e41c41f8f2e3ca2&zw

Future of manned space flight

  In my opinion there should be very little manned-space-flight future –  for several reasons.

The scientific value of sending people beyond our atmosphere was gained some years ago.  It’s time to cease our manned space program.

We will never colonize another planet.  We will never send people to another star system.  We will never create a self-sustaining, habitable satellite.

We know all we need to know about the physiological and psychological effects of weightlessness – most of which were predicted.  We have devised methods of slowing and limiting those effects – methods for which there is no compelling need.

Our expertise in space flight can remain sharp with more practical programs like GPS and meteorology, and scientific programs like geology and astronomy – and military programs like ICBMs and scuds.  So the space-flight technology will advance after manned space flight ceases.  One might imagine a time when ICBMs can be abolished.

Earth’s resources are limited.  It is unethical for our generation to consume far more than needed. 

Political preference

 

Here is why I prefer the Democratic Party:

Suffering matters.  More suffering is bad.  Less suffering is good.  Nothing else matters.

Overpopulation increases suffering.  Republicans did the gag rule, preventing international family planning.

Resource depletion increases suffering.  Republicans belittle efforts to slow consumption of nonrenewable resources.  Drill baby drill!

Climate change increases suffering.  Republicans oppose efforts to limit global warming – Paris Accords.

Ignorance increases suffering.  Republican media spread many lies every day, every hour.  Few if any scholars or experts appear in Republican broadcasts.

Hate increases suffering.  Listen to Republican pundits a few hours, eg Mark Levin, Sean Hannity.

Poverty increases suffering.  Republican tax policies favoring  the wealthy have decimated the middle class.

Injustice increases suffering.  Democrats are more hospitable to social justice.

It seems to me that:

 

1.  Our society is embracing technologies that will diminish total human satisfaction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh6iuXmJ6uM

2.  Several financial services unjustly transfer wealth from ordinary people to plutocrats.

3.  The dollar could be preserved by judicious taxation of total wealth (realized and unrealized).

4.  Republicans Made America Greedy Again.  We now leave food rotting in fields and in shipping containers while brown children starve.

What if we were ethical?

By “we” I mean my tribes, kind, ilk and generation: American, white, Christian, male, middle class, contemporary.

By “ethical” I mean honest, respectful, just, restrained, considerate, kind, not criminal.

I want us to be more ethical.  I get a thrill when I see or hear of ethical or virtuous acts.  I feel shame when I consider the people that I have failed or abused and when I consider the crimes that my tribes have committed – against non-white foreigners, against non-white American citizens, against foreign peoples, against non-Christians, against our descendants.

We are much more sensitive to harm to our tribe (Pearl Harbor, 9/11) than to harm done by us to other tribes – genocide of native Americans, theft of Mexican territories, abuse of southern neighbors.  Until recently, conquest and exploitation were noble pursuits.

Today I want to consider the counterfactual reality, if America had avoided its many post-war crimes.  What if we had not bombed and poisoned Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and their neighbors?  What if we had not interfered in the struggles of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Israel, Lybia, etc?  I believe that those actions prevented their maturation, corrupted our leaders and sullied our reputation.  All of our post-war leaders are guilty of this, including my favorites.  I can not see how those crimes have improved our lives.

These foreign actions appear to have been directed by mega-rich arms dealers for their profit.  Greed is insatiable.

The counterfactual is, of course, the impossible, since events of one moment follow inevitably from those of the preceding moment.  Yet I wish otherwise.  I wish we were ethical.

Then there is the question of my generation's over-exploitation of resources and environmental destruction, including global warming.  Can we treat future generations more ethically?

Population Collapse and Spiritual Suffering

  By several measures, the earth is overpopulated.  In just 200 years, we have run through most of the easily extractable fossil fuels and metal ores, we have decimated numerous animal species, and we have polluted the atmosphere and waters beyond the tipping point where global warming became self accelerating, resulting in run-away global warming, widespread aridification and flooding storms.  The Amazon is drying up and southeast USA suffered epic floods last week.

Lately several factors have conspired to inhibit population growth of advanced nations.  Significant are women’s education, women’s employment and social media.  Numerous experts find the fertility deficit regrettable.  Economists warn that declining fertility results in too few working citizens to support the retired citizens, financially and practically.  Social security will go broke and caretakers will not suffice.  Also important is the social pathology associated with mating failure.  Finally, neighborhoods, even cities with abandoned homes quickly become socially dangerous bankruptcy hot spots.

In my opinion, the ecological benefits of reduced population justify the unavoidable suffering associated with it.  I challenge fellow julepers to imagine ways to minimize that suffering.  Here are some random thoughts:

1)  Social Centers scattered liberally among neighborhoods.  These would be spaces to facilitate innocent interactions among neighbors – board games, music making, dancing, theater.

2)  Community gardens and garden-support clubs.

3)  ? ? ?

Restraint needed

Catastrophes for our grandchildren because their predecessors (we) could not decide rationally to restrain their (our) appetites and share with descendants:

1)  Fossil fuels will be largely depleted and total energy supply will be insufficient for modern conveniences, like transportation, indoor comfort, mechanized farming.

2)  The atmosphere will have enough CO2 to render much land and water inhospitable to humans and human-supporting life: Too hot and too acidic.

3)  The demands of data storage (exponentially growing cloud: Google, YouTube, AI, smartphone, blockchain) will overwhelm energy-supply systems (fuels, grid).

4)  Excessive information technology will dominate the human experience, resulting in ennui, envy,  loneliness, meaninglessness and procreative insufficiency.  

5)  Tribalism (ethnic, religious) will result in more barbaric conflicts as the environment degrades.

Of these mega-trends, the only desirable one is procreative insufficiency, sad though it may be – desirable only in that it will diminish the energy shortage.

Strategic Food Reserves

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Emerson_Humanitarian_Trust

Virtually every scientist knows that our civilization is on the edge of massive harvest failures.  We can’t predict when and where failures will happen, but we know that continued global warming will render large areas too hot or dry or flood prone for their historical crops and livestock.  Yet we have no strategic food reserves.  We abandoned such safety measures in favor of price manipulation back in the 1990's.

        Hopefully, farm practices can adjust to gradual changes in climate, but there will always be periods of mismatch and low production.

I believe that we should have an international convention to identify areas of Antarctica where vast numbers of grain-filled shipping containers sealed with nitrogen gas can be parked without upsetting local flora and fauna.  The convention could supervise rational allocation of container-parking spaces among participating nations.

Nations owning the reserves would be able to use them to satisfy their own needs and to sell or lend them to other nations – those with fertility rates below three babies per mother.  The reserves should not be sold to nations with higher fertility rates.

We could experience a temporary crop failure due to global warming and the opposite.  For example, a large volcanic eruption or a large asteroid collision could bring on a year or more of dark and cool summers.  A large solar storm could disable much of our communications and control apparatus at a critical time.  And then there is the threat of nuclear winter.

It is irresponsible not to have a generous strategic food reserve.  Any significant food shortage will result in a breakdown of social order the likes of which cannot be imagined.

The distribution of fertility rates is presented in the following map:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Total_Fertility_Rate_Map_by_Country.svg

Sad Truth

It’s worse than inconvenient.  It’s devastating and inevitable.  Our quest for satisfaction is rapidly depleting the resources needed for our descendants to satisfy needs, desires, comforts, etc.  Our institutions (religions, governments, schools) reflect our primitive tribal instincts and so cannot respond rationally.  Astrophysical and geological events will destroy us even if we could respond rationally.

Given these facts: What matters?  What should we care about?  What should we do with our temporary existence?  I would argue that suffering matters, that we should care about and try to minimize unnecessary suffering.  That would be worthwhile.

Most suffering is out of our control.  Wild sentient animals suffer much of the time with hunger, fear, exposure, disease, parasites, injury, etc.  Western societies generally recognize a duty to treat domesticated animals humanely.  Modern medicine is advanced though poorly distributed.  But we haven’t figured out how to prevent crime and war.  We harm each other unnecessarily and often regrettably.  We don’t have the institutions to address the suffering coming our way due to over consumption and resource depletion.  Every effort to address this problem is met with political opposition.  The promise of tax breaks prevails over reason.  No political system and no religious movement promises better outcomes.

We need a new institution built with new technology.

16 Recommendations:

 

1  Respect truth

2  Revere justice

3  Relieve suffering (famine, disease, injury, loneliness)

4  Restrain primal urges (greed, fear, tribalism, procreation)

5  Resist mischief (it's usually regretted)

6  Regard beauty

7  Remain curious

8  Restore balance

9  Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Repair, Recycle stuff

10  Reject social media

11  Repeat the golden rule

12  Stay inventive

13  Save nature

14  Share burdens and benefits

15  Seek meaning

16  Sing sentimental songs

This list attempts to identify satisfying life choices that support civilization.  What have I missed?  What doesn't belong? 

Israel/Palestine

 What decision by what Israeli leader since 1946 might have resulted in durable peace and justice from the river to the sea?

Proposed test for light-speed symmetry

It is said that we don’t know the actual speed of light going from a source to a target; we know only the two-way speed going from a source to a target and reflecting back to the source.  Conceivably light is faster in one direction than the other.  Perhaps one could test whether light has the same speed in opposite directions by use of the spinning photosensitive disc illustrated below.

The idea is to send a pulse of light simultaneously leftward and rightward from a single, middle source over a fast spinning photosensitive disc.  If the disc spins fast enough, the light pulse should leave an arc shaped mark on each side, left and right.  If light’s leftward and rightward speeds differ, then the arc will be flatter on the side of faster light speed, like the purple-dot path compared to the green-dot paths.  One will not know which side is faster unless the light leaves a side-specific signature, eg a left-right color difference.

         In this illustration, the disc made one quarter rotation as a light pulse (green dots) went from center to left edge and from center to right edge.  It is depicted as it was at the end of that quarter turn.  The purple dots show the path of the right-side pulse if it were twice as fast.  They advanced with the disc as the slower and later (green) exposures occurred.

        Considering the speed of light relative to the speed of a matter disc, this experiment would require extremely fine resolution, since the disc would advance only a few atoms as the light pulse traveled from middle to edge.  But such resolution may be possible, as it was achieved in the LIGO gravity-wave sensor.

        An analogous experiment could be done with a  fast-sliding photo-sensitive sheet instead of disk, or with a fast-rotating photo-sensitive cylinder as illustrated below.  Perhaps the moving photo-sensitivity could be electronic rather than massive, given the speeds implied.

Better governance, better society

Here are some ideas that might improve our society -- decreasing gratuitous suffering, increasing justice and truth.

1.  In the House of Representatives and Senate, every vote should be held twice, once in secret and once overt.  In the secret vote, every member would choose what he/she believes will make America stronger and more just.  In the overt vote, every member would vote as traditionally influenced by the party leaders.  Only the overt vote would be official, but the difference should be discussed.

2.  Double the fairness of the electoral college by giving each state as many electors as it has representatives and senators minus one.

3.  Devise a more just drawing of representative districts by using a computer program that minimizes distance traveled by voters to their polling places.

4.  Each year after a downward revision of tax rates by congress, change the tax rates 10% back toward their previous values each year that the deficit is greater than before the revision.

5.  Place a 1% tax on each person’s net worth above one million.  Alternatively do what Elizabeth Warren proposes.

6.  Modify items 4 and 5 so as to keep interest on the national debt less than the military budget.

7.  Restore original Senate procedures: Simple majority and one-person live filibuster.

8.  Levy foreign-manufacture sales taxes instead of import tarriffs.  This can be accomplished easily now that every item of commerce has a unique 2-D bar code.  This tax would be used to reduce off-shoring or increase on-shoring for the sake of national security and labor support.

9.  Provide communities in which to house homeless populations and outlaw camping on streets.  There could be substance-specific settlements in abandoned mining towns, for example.

10.  Place regulatory limits on off-shoring of US-established manufacturing operations so as to keep a fraction of machinery and expertise in US.

11.  Place high-altitude month-long-soaring camera planes above US border areas to record locations of moving objects one-frame per second (eg).  That way, substance traffickers and other criminals can be located and identified.

12.  Implement a one- or two-year national service requirement for all youth after high school.

13.  Require email promoters to halve the frequency of messages to a given url for each week that they receive no response from said url.  Alternatively or additionally, make the unsubscribe button uniformly easy to implement.

14.  Identify and implement rational, practical and ethical immigration policies and north/south economic relations.

15.  Outlaw high-capacity clips/mags.

16.  Reach out helpfully to latin nations including Cuba, Venezuala and Mexico.

Democrats don’t do dirt

Democrats don’t do dirt.  If they did dirt, Hillary Clinton would have been our 45th president.  For example, when Trump began crowding Clinton on the debate stage, she might have said: “Don’t come so close when your diapers are so full”; or “Don’t crowd people when you need a diaper change!”   And in the present race, when people question Biden’s physical and mental stamina, he could point out that he (Biden) doesn’t wear diapers, in contrast to Trump.  Democrats could have people outside the courthouse to ask Trump whether he needs a diaper change or whether he has considered the prospect of changing his diaper in a jail cell for violating the gag rule.  But, Democrats don't do dirt.

Proposed Internet law

The promoter of a given product must halve the frequency of messages about that product to a given url for each week said messages to said url go unanswered.

The value of email has been greatly diminished by spam.  My children have stopped checking their email because their inbox is so full of irrelevant messages.  They don't have the time to go through and delete the spam or to identify it as spam for automatic sorting.

Therefore, I propose the above law with means to punish offenders.

Laffer’s Errors

 

Some weeks ago, I tuned to the C- SPAN book channel and was shocked to see Arthur Laffer still suggesting that lowering tax rates could cause higher tax revenues.  That lie, told to Rumsfeld and Cheney over cocktails during Reagan’s presidential campaign 5 decades ago, is responsible for our run-away national debt, our unjust wealth distribution and irrational Republican success (Reagan, Bush II, Trump) – irrational in that working-class voters would not have voted for these three phonies had they known that lowering income-tax rates simply transfers wealth from the national treasury to the richest people on earth, namely bond holders.  This has bankrupted the USA, in that we must borrow from bond holders hence add to our debt to pay interest on existing debt held by those same bond holders, a vicious cycle.  That’s Arthur Laffer’s legacy.

The details are as follows.  From WWII to Reagan’s administration, we had a top tax bracket at or above 70% and our national debt fell steadily from 90% of GDP to 32% of GDP.  We were paying our WWII debt despite costs of the interstate highway system and two more wars.

As soon as Reagan lowered the top tax bracket to and below 50%, our national debt began climbing above 32% of GDP, passing 100% of GDP in 2010 and reaching 122% of GDP today: a quadrupling of national debt.  There was a period of diminishing national debt in the late 90s, quickly stifled by Bush-II tax cuts.  As expected from the Laffer/Reagan tax changes, the wealthiest 1% of our citizens went from receiving 8% of national income in 1980 to receiving 18% of national income in 2010.

Reasonable people predicted much of this when the Laffer curve became national doctrine back in 1980.  To the extent that wealthy bond holders are responsible for perpetuating Laffer’s errors, then it is abuse of power.

Instead of starving the poor or increasing the debt limit, it would be better to back off of the latest tax cut slightly.

For details see:

US Macroeconomic History

                                                                                                                                                            Addendum:  The most important consequences of Laffer's "irrational Republican success (Reagan, Bush II, Trump)" is not the national debt, which can still be fixed; it is the growth of right-wing anti-intellectualism, making rational energy policy impossible.  Instead of Jimmy Carter, we got Reagan who tore the solar panels off the White House roof.  Instead of Al Gore who wanted to combat global warming, we got Bush II who started a criminal war out of spite.  Instead of Hillary Clinton, we got ignorant sensationalist Trump.  Instead of international family planning we got the gag rule and widespread food insecurity, immeasurable suffering and the population bomb spilling out of the southern continents.

Semi-truck Anti-jackknife System

A semi-truck is said to be jackknifing if the angle between its tractor 41 and its trailer 42 increases undesirably – the tractor has veered leftward and is drifting rightward (as in Fig B), or it has veered rightward and is drifting leftward.  The rig becomes an unsteerable, multimillion-dollar threat to itself and others.  Drivers instinctively steer in the direction of drift, which would realign the tractor with its trajectory, if the front wheels could roll freely while other wheels are braked.

We (David M Regen, Samuel M Regen, Ingrid L Regen) recently patented our Jackknife-Prevention System.  It is a set of sensors (lateral-acceleration sensor 15, steering-direction sensor 16) and effectors (front-wheel-brake disablers 18,19) which help restore alignment of a sideward-skidding (drifting) semi-truck tractor 41 with its trajectory 43.  The lateral-acceleration sensor could be a mercury-ball tilt sensor, the steering-direction sensor could be a steering-angle sensor with appropriate processor or a three-way switch without a processor, and the brake disablers could be electrically powered three-way solenoid valves or three-way ball-cock valves.  In essence the system disables both front brakes of a leftward-drifting tractor when it is steered leftward or of a rightward-drifting tractor when it is steered rightward.  This allows the front wheels to advance faster than other wheels, thereby aligning the tractor with its trajectory and making the rig again steerable.  These actions should occur only when the key is on and the brakes are applied, so the sensors should receive signal power from the brake-light circuit and should trigger a relay to pass power from the key-on circuit to the effectors.

The actions to restore alignment of a sideward-skidding trailer-hauling tractor with its trajectory will also help restore alignment of any sideward-skidding vehicle with its trajactory, thereby reversing spin-out of any vehicle, including a trailerless semi-truck tractor.  Semi-truck drivers fear spin-outs as much as jackknifes.

A tractor can become misaligned several ways.  For example, the driver might apply brakes when the tractor’s right wheels are on a slippery area (liquid or gravel) or vise versa.  The tractor will veer to the side with greater traction.  If it veers leftward (as in Fig B), it will drift or skid rightward, and vise versa.  Another jackknife cause is braking while turning -- for example, braking while changing lanes, braking while dodging an obstacle or braking while exiting the highway via an off-ramp.  The trailer's inertia pushes the tractor's rear in the direction of the trailer's trajectory 43.  This push, being off-center with respect to the tractor's footprint, constitutes a spinning force to exaggerate the tractor's yaw.  Front-wheel unbraking in response to appropriate steering of a sideward-drifting tractor will restore alignment regardless of cause.

We contend that our jackknife-prevention system is effective under circumstances where alternative systems might fail.  We hope to licence our invention to at least one established semi-truck manufacturer or air-brake manufacturer.  The patent can be seen at:  JACKKNIFE PREVENTION SYSTEM  

Below is how the Jackknife Prevention System can be  conveniently implemented:

Design and Manufacture of Anti-jackknife/Anti-spinout Module

The Anti-jackknife System disables a semi-truck’s front-wheel brakes when the tractor is skidding sideward and the front wheels are steered in the direction of skid, so as to restore alignment of the tractor with its trajectory when the front wheels roll freely.

We have designed a module (Fig 1, below) with the steering-direction sensor 20+30 and lateral-acceleration (tilt) sensor 11 both in a single module which surrounds the steering column 1 and is anchored to the firewall via a brace 42,43,44 on which a relay 60 is mounted.  It's prototype is illustrated below:

The steering direction sensor has a rotor 20 pressed to the steering column 1 and bearing a strong magnet in its top front edge, and a stator 30 surrounding these and bearing a steel ball in a tunnel just outside the magnet's course, the tunnel having left-side conductors and right-side conductors.  The steel ball following the magnet joins the left-side conductors with each other when steering is leftward or joins the right-side conductors with each other when steering is rightward.

The lateral-acceleration sensor 11 is a transversely positoned elliptical chamber containing a mercury ball and a pair of left-end conductors and a pair of right-end conductors, the left-conductor pair or right-conductor pair being joined by the mercury ball depending on innertial forces sending the ball left or right in the elliptical chamber.

The sensors are essentially robust three-way switches (left on, right on, mid-off) connected in a left-side series and a right-side series from the key-on circuit to a relay which activates front-wheel brake-disabling valves.  If the mercury ball moves left and the rotor's magnet pulls the stator's steel ball left, then volts and amps pass to the relay which sends power to both left and right brake-disabling valves 18,19.  If the mercury ball moves right and the rotor's magnet pulls the stator's steel ball right, then volts and amps pass to the relay which sends power to both left and right brake-disabling valves 18,19.  No other condition activates the brake-disabling valves.

For tractors with antilock brakes, it may be possible for their front ABS valves to double as anti-jackknife/anti-spinout brake-disabling valves 18,19.

Memorable Music Making

Almost a decade ago, Bill and Larry Brown created a couple of BGA events: 1) an evening of Camp HyLake songs and reminiscing on stage in the auditorium,  2) Camp HyLake reunion lunch followed by spontaneous recollections and a couple of camp songs in the athletic building.  Both events were led by some of us octogenarian guitar-playing camp alumni.

We met a few times to prepare for these occasions and to enjoy some country tunes from our youth.  One of them sounded pretty good, Blue eyes crying in the rain.  The lead singer in this video was Larry Stumb, who assembled some pickers perhaps a year later to lead music down at the Nashville Rescue Mission for morning devotionals led by one of Larry’s friends.  We did that several times over the next year or so.  Preparing for those events evolved into a song circle that met every few weeks at the homes of the pickers, early on in Larry Stumb’s back-room den, then in Coach Stewart's sun room and eventually in Bill Brown’s basement den.

We were all in our eighties and unsteady, so we decided to name ourselves “The Stumblers” – alluding to our infirmities and honoring our founding member, Larry Stumb.  Early on, Bill’s energetic young friend and helper Ashlie Jewel joined the group and became the sine-qua-non of the circle, as can be appreciated in the following videos:  I am weary  and  Last Cheater's Waltz .

I had to quit a few years ago, having dozed off at a few traffic stops on the way home.  Larry Stumb became too crippled to continue and he died about a year ago.  He was the consummate people person, interested in and supportive of everyone he knew.  His devotion to country music was inspiring; his knowledge of it encyclopedic.  This long-lasting song circle, The Stumblers, keeps on regenerating itself owing to Bill Brown's generous hosting and Ashlie's loving direction.  It is a worthy tribute to its namesake, our modest and devoted friend, Larry Stumb.